A tactical loss to Iran or strategic surrender to the PRC

Trump’s two choices

U.S. President Donald Trump faces a consequential choice. He can either capitulate to the Khamenei regime in Iran or quadruple down on a conflict that will severely damage the U.S., likely ensuring that the PRC becomes the global hegemon. Escalating in Iran would represent a profound error: the U.S. should rapidly wind down the conflict, even if that means accepting unfavorable terms vis-a-vis Tehran.

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There are two options in the war

In the words of Danny Citrinowicz, former head of the Iran Division in the IDF Military Intelligence Directorate’s Research Department, the military campaign “is not toppling the regime but reinforcing it.” Citrinowicz argues that: “There is no third option, and you cannot hold a stick at both ends. Either a nuclear-focused agreement or a full-scale campaign with all that entails.”

The United States and its coalition partners are scoring one tactical victory after another, but these are not accumulating to any strategic value. Khamenei forces win by not losing: every day the Strait of Hormuz remains shut leads to immense pressure on world economies – especially in Asia, but also across the globe.

Short of a massive military escalation, there does not appear to be a way to open the Strait. Iranian drones and ballistic missiles present extremely credible threats to unarmed merchant vessels; these platforms have a range extending over hundreds of kilometers. Merchant vessels could sail in a convoy with armed escorts, but this is problematic for several reasons. First, passage would risk scarce, expensive coalition naval assets; in addition, merchant vessels traveling in a convoy are considered legitimate military targets, complicating risk insurance; and, finally, if convoys faced or expected substantial resistance, only a limited number of vessels could transit at a time, preventing maritime trade from reaching pre-war levels. While convoys would mitigate the crisis, they would not eliminate it and would prove costly. Furthermore, if Iran mines the Strait, en masse, it would take weeks or even months to clear it. Minesweepers would face tremendous difficulty wiping mines from the Strait, and the only way to ensure that the IRGC does not re-mine the Strait is to prevent its maritime access by controlling its entire coastline, which is larger than Texas. This is a profoundly challenging military problem, as former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, General Stanley McChrystal, and others have pointed out.

The escalation option

If the U.S. escalates in Iran, there can be no half-measures: opening the Strait of Hormuz would require sustained control of the coastline to prevent naval mining, and sufficient control of the interior to prevent drone and ballistic missile attacks on seaborne cargoes. Proponents of escalation need to be honest about what this course of action would require. In all likelihood, controlling the coastline and much of the Iranian interior would require a massive, sustained presence of troops, probably several hundred thousand troops for at least 5 years.

A ground invasion of Iran would be a vastly larger effort than seen in Iraq. We can quantify this easily. Iran is nearly four times the geographic size of Iraq, while Iran’s population totals 92 million, versus Iraq’s 25 million. While Iraq has a tiny coastline, Iran’s southern coastline length is roughly similar to Texas’ Gulf Coast. Iraq is flat desert; Iran is hillier and has the Zagros and Alborz mountain ranges.

Iran is a natural fort, a defender’s paradise.

Destroying the Iranian threat will therefore almost certainly require ground forces several times the size placed in Iraq. At the height of the Iraq war, U.S. forces in Iraq reached an annual average peak of 157,800 individuals. The U.S.-led coalition would likely have to cobble together a force several times this size. The U.S. could potentially lean on its partners to provide troops. The Gulf Cooperation Council states, maybe Turkey, and potentially even Pakistan would be willing to supply forces. But this would be a very unruly and fractious coalition with disparate and even conflicting aims. For instance, would Pakistani forces coordinate with Israeli airstrikes? Would Turkish ground forces cooperate with Kurdish rebels on the ground in Iran? At minimum, this campaign would likely cost thousands of American lives (not to mention tens of thousands of lives across the Middle East), require hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars in defense outlays alone, and necessitate the U.S. military and security services to, once again, re-orient themselves to the Middle East.

In addition, Tehran and potentially other actors could escalate the conflict horizontally, especially to the United States. Just like the Soviets employed “illegals” to infiltrate Western societies, and conduct sabotage in the event of hostilities, the Iranian regime may also have deep-cover assets ready to deploy against critical infrastructure, such as energy, water, power stations, substations, transformers, and more. I want to stress that I am only speculating here and do not have inside information. But I am very concerned that elements of the Khamenei regime may bring the conflict to the United States.

There is also the potential for false flags by third-party actors or lone-wolf actors conducting stochastic terror attacks. The FBI Director reports that a brother and sister have been charged after an explosive device was found at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida; MacDill is home to CENTCOM, which directs U.S. military operations in the Middle East. Bizarrely, the two indicted individuals are Chinese nationals; the brother eluded the FBI and is now in China. While it’s not clear if the Chinese government was involved with the attacks, the incident further raises doubts about the FBI’s ability to solve even high-profile, high-consequence crimes. The gutting of the FBI, the nation’s top domestic counterintelligence organization, may prove disastrous.

An improvised, snap, full-scale invasion of Iran would be an extraordinarily risky and messy undertaking, especially since neither the Trump administration nor the Netanyahu administration were prepared for a conflict even approaching that duration and severity. A prolonged, expensive war may allow Beijing to become the permanent hegemon.

Beijing may be willing to fight the U.S. to the last Iranian

A Middle East conflict holds major economic risks for Beijing, but there are many scenarios where it could emerge as one of the conflict’s victors, likely along with Russia. China is the world’s largest energy importer and has publicly signaled its interest in stemming a conflict. As the CRR reported, the Chinese navy skipped annual trilateral naval exercises with Russia and Iran, while Xi Jinping and other Chinese officials seemed to hint to Moscow not to escalate a conflict. Even so, Beijing may reap major geopolitical windfalls because of a wider conflict.

The PRC will reap enormous military rewards from a large-scale U.S.-led invasion of Iran. Even if Beijing does not assist Khamenei forces, the U.S. will likely suffer thousands of casualties, at minimum, while U.S. military spending will, once again, be redirected from winning high-end conflicts to conducting counterinsurgency campaigns. In addition, the PRC would be able to collect information about U.S. military capabilities, especially relevant platforms like the F-35 or the U.S. Navy. In some scenarios, the PRC might even aid the Iranian military, including by providing defense industrial base support or even targeting data. The U.S. may spend the next five years fighting insurgents in Iran, leaving it too exhausted to contest a takeover of Taiwan, one of the world’s top technology powers and home to virtually all advanced semiconductor production.

Beijing’s economy is also better positioned to weather the conflict than its democratic adversaries in East Asia. The PRC is significantly more energy-secure than the East Asian democracies of Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea. The PRC produces far more domestic energy than its rival neighbors and has greater potential to deploy renewables and electric vehicles than any other country. Moreover, if a crisis is LNG-tinted, both Beijing and its partner, Moscow, stand to benefit in relative terms. Russia could see a major boost to its oil and gas export earnings, while the PRC is much less reliant on natural gas imports than Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the European Union. In addition, China, Russia, and Belarus may ultimately exercise unprecedented influence across global food supply chains, as the world loses access to Middle Eastern agricultural inputs like ammonia and urea. The PRC could also dominate certain segments of the petrochemical supply chain, as rivals in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan are forced to shutter production due to limited feedstock and electricity supply.

If the U.S. conducts a full-scale war against Iran, it may truly result in changes unseen in a century, as Beijing would very likely become the world’s dominant power.

Escalation proponents argue that accepting unfavorable terms with Tehran would erode Washington’s strategic position, including in the Indo-Pacific. They argue that if Washington capitulates to Tehran, then U.S. security partners in the Gulf, allies across Europe and the Indo-Pacific, and rivals alike will conclude that American guarantees are hollow. Furthermore, if Tehran can close a critical chokepoint and extract concessions, PLA planners may internalize that the United States has limited pain tolerance. These risks are admittedly real, while leaving Tehran in charge of tolls along a “Lanak Canal” would represent an unstable and damaging equilibrium. Nevertheless, an unplanned snap invasion, and the disaster that would result, would do even more damage to American interests than acknowledging the reality of a tactical defeat in Iran. There are now no good options, but meeting reality squarely in the face is better than denying it.

Tactical defeat is better than strategic surrender

The U.S. is in an extraordinarily difficult position. The Khamenei regime shows no sign of backing down and is in a stronger position by the day. Meanwhile, dislodging the threat to shipping in the Strait of Hormuz is an extraordinarily difficult task and will require sustained military efforts. If the Trump administration wants to keep the Strait of Hormuz open via military force, it will likely need to invade with several hundred thousand troops, drawn from a coalition of forces that hate one another. This invasion would take years, cost trillions of dollars directly and indirectly, and may fail to keep a lid on energy prices, as Iran and its proxies could continue to disrupt shipping, upstream energy production, or both. Most damagingly, this conflict would exhaust the U.S. military and finances, likely enabling the Chinese Communist Party to become the hegemon in Asia and globally. While a tactical defeat in Iran will be ugly and risky, it is far less dangerous than the alternative of strategic surrender to Beijing.

A full-scale invasion of Iran will inaugurate a new and dangerous world, led by the Chinese Communist Party. Proponents of this invasion should not be allowed to say they were not warned.

Joseph Webster is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Global Energy Center and the Indo-Pacific Security Initiative; he also edits the independent China-Russia Report. This analysis reflects his own personal opinion.

The China-Russia Report is an independent, nonpartisan newsletter covering political, economic, and security affairs within and between China and Russia. All articles, comments, op-eds, etc represent only the personal opinion of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the position(s) of The China-Russia Report.